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Scratch Golf in talks with metro Detroit supplier to bring golf club manufacturing back to U.S.

Photo by GLENN TRIEST
Ari Techner, president and CEO of Scratch Golf Clubs, looks over some forged club heads.

Golf club manufacturing could be coming back to the U.S. with metro Detroit manufacturing know-how.

Scratch Golf Clubs LLC, a custom golf club business that moved to Berkley from Chattanooga, Tenn., last August, is in talks with a local foundry in an attempt to launch local production of raw golf club forgings, President and CEO Ari Techner said.

The company sources raw golf club forgings from Japan because there hasn’t been American production of golf clubs since 2003 when the last U.S. forger of golf clubs went out of business, according to Techner.

Having the golf club forgings done locally would allow Scratch to offer a “100 percent made in Michigan” line of clubs, he said.

After moving its headquarters, fitting location and showroom from Tennessee to a Woodward Avenue site north of 11 Mile last August, Scratch launched golf club grinding and finishing operations at a 6,000-square-foot location in Warren in December with three employees.

Techner projects the company will grind about 2,000 wedges and drivers there in the next year.

Scratch plans to open its second fitting/retail location at Boyne Highlands Resort in Harbor Springs on May 16. That location will operate full time in the summer and on weekends in the winter.

Techner, the great-grandson of Ira Kaufman, founder of Ira Kaufman Chapel in Southfield, said last fall that he and his wife initially thought to come back to metro Detroit to raise their family.

He and his business partners increasingly saw the advantages of locating the company here, too, including the large number of metalworking and finishing companies, the large local market of potential customers and a heavy interest in golf.

Michigan ranked No. 4 on Golf Digest's 2010-11 list of the top golf states, its most recent ranking.

All of those things point to great potential for increasing revenue, Techner said.

Scratch Golf posted about $1.5 million in revenue in 2012 on the sale of about 15,000 clubs through its fitting room, website (scratchgolf.com), small U.S. stores and international distributors.